“No, we don’t have a crack team we parachute into oil tycoon meetings and country clubs to pluck out our bachelor, we do a lot through networking, we contact different people and organizations and groups and matchmakers and we fan out and spread the word,” he says, and later shakes his head with amusement when he repeats the Star’s suggestion: “The mall.”

“I’m just supportive of whatever she wants to do,” he later says, button in place.

The room has the nervous energy of a dentist’s office with a very particular clientele. Close to 100 women sit in waiting room chairs, scrolling their phones, running hands through straightened hair, waiting for their number to be called to interview with producers. A Miley Cyrus song plays. It is Morrison’s favourite. The original top she picked was deemed “a little boobyish,” by her supporters. She wore a purple peplum shirt with a jewel embellished neckline. The hair stylist puts her hand on a reporter’s arm in conversation, appreciative of a compliment about her hair: “That’s what I want to hear, that I look the part,” she says.

Some women wear short dresses, others are more casual in jeans and a top. One girl wears a light pink dress with very sparkly silver heels for a “Carrie Bradshaw” look.

“You can tell almost how people will be typecast, based on the crazy s--- they’re wearing,” says Emily Phillips, who came to support her friend Carling Liski, 24.

Liski, from Toronto, says producers asked about her “party trick” during the interview. “I’m known for dancing on tables, so I danced on the chair for them.”

Morrison thinks she might be the one who gets caught talking about another girl, saying she shouldn’t be on a certain date.

“I don’t think I’d be catty, or the crazy one. I think I’d just kind of lay low,” she says.

She is nervous that she won’t hear back from producers. If she makes it through, she’ll have other things to be nervous about, like “the little things you do in private that would be broadcast for the world with the hidden cameras.”

One legal document contestants sign acknowledges they understand “my appearance, depiction and/or portrayal in the Program may be disparaging, defamatory, embarrassing or of an otherwise unfavourable nature which may expose me to public ridicule, humiliation, or condemnation …”

“The paperwork it’s like, we can portray you as someone you’re not, and I’m like, do it,” says Lauren Ellis, a 27-year-old nurse from Ingersoll, standing at the back of the room with a friend. “They said it nicer than that but that’s what it means.”

Ellis says she has nothing to lose.

“People who know me know who I am anyway, and if they don’t, screw it,” she says.

By early afternoon, officials say that a few men came earlier in the day, but only female contestants are on hand to talk to the Star.

Producers hope to find women ready for marriage, hopefully from every part of Canada. Taking a break in the lobby, De Vries says most people have really great stories.

“I think there is a strong prejudice not just among critics but people in general, about what makes a bachelorette, ‘Oh they must be desperate, or they want to be on TV. It’s not really true,” he says. “I’ve met some of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life who have great careers who are great people who just really want to find someone. You do get the ones who fill the cynical model of what they are, but you get a lot of really amazing people.”

The show is expected to premiere in the fall. He says he loves it because it’s “lowbrow, Shakespearean drama.”

“It doesn’t have to be everybody’s cup of tea. Give it credit for what it is,” he says, before returning to the lovelorn conference rooms. “It’s a trip.”